Soviet authorities are threatening to start criminal proceedings against Vladimir Lazaris and Emma Sotnikova, editors of an “unofficial” periodical. “Jews in the USSR,” the National Conference on Soviet Jewry reported.
The NCSJ cited an appeal from Prof, Alexander Voronel, Dr. Rafal Nudelman and writer Ilya Rubin, Soviet Jewish activists now living in Israel, who said that the “only guilt” of the two was their hope to “realize the right to develop a national culture of the Jewish people, a right formally guaranteed by the Soviet Constitution.” The NCSJ said there was “great apprehension” among Moscow’s Jews about the threat of prosecution of the two editors.
In related developments, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry reported that Rimma Yakir, wife of Moscow activist Yevgeny Yakir, has been threatened with a trial for parasitism. The SSSJ also reported that Boris Fishkin, 48, a Moscow economist, has received permission to emigrate after staging a three-day hunger strike with Lev Blitshtein. Their sons fasted simultaneously in front of the Manhattan office of Aeroflot, the Soviet airline. Blitshtein was told to reapply “in one year,” the SSSJ reported.
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